Call for Papers – Transparency and Disclosure in Private and Government Data Collection

The Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal (AELJ) is pleased to announce its annual symposium, Transparency and Disclosure in Private and Government Data Collection, being held this spring at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, New York, New York. In conjunction with this event, AELJ will also publish a symposium edition.

Data privacy is a current hot topic amongst legal scholars, public policy makers, practicing attorneys, businesspersons, and consumers alike. Companies are increasingly using their consumers’ data to predict buying habits, and such data programs have sparked concern over consumer data privacy. One father received the news of his teenage daughter’s pregnancy after Target had sent her coupons for baby clothes by using the teenager’s data to predict her pregnancy score. Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks made us reassess the government’s data collection program and whether such collections should be limited or at least disclosed to the public. Policy makers and scholars now deliberate what kind of legal reforms or procedures must be put into place to protect the public’s private data from abuse.

Private and government data-collection programs, and “Big Data” in particular, have various beneficial and profitable uses. Large pools of consumer and public data can be assessed to discover certain patterns and correlations to help private entities and the government to make better decisions when serving consumers and the general public. However, such data-collection programs have sparked serious concern about personal privacy rights.

To protect consumer and public information, some scholars and advocates have called for new federal regulation. Many of these proposals take the form of limitations on the quality and quantity of permissible data to be collected. In contrast to these proposed protections, AELJ’s symposium will focus on the role of transparency, disclosure, and notice practices during data collections, and if such transparency practices could serve to ameliorate data privacy concerns, at least in part.

AELJ invites scholars, professors, and practitioners to submit articles for consideration in this issue. Submissions can be submitted for review and consideration by emailing submissions@cardozoaelj.com or through ExpressO by February 23, 2014.